Internet use in the Arab Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is growing rapidly, but there is evidence that many countries in the region are increasing their crackdowns on what they consider to be dissident content.
A study of 11 countries carried out by the Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRINFO) - "The internet in the Arab world: A new space of repression?" - finds many of the area's estimated 14 million internet users facing shutdown of websites, closing of internet cafes and prosecution for a variety of crimes.
The study charges that "Arab governments typically use the protection of Islamic values and public morals to justify banning websites of human rights or political opposition groups".
The HRINFO study finds the most active censorship in Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. These countries use a variety of tools, including criminal prosecutions, to stop internet use by opposition political groups, homosexuals, Islamic fundamentalists and religious minorities. In most of these countries internet cafes have been shut down, websites blocked and numerous users sentenced to prison terms.
More enlightened, according to the study, are Jordan, Qatar, the UAE and post-Saddam Iraq.
In Egypt improper internet use is being used to justify prosecution of individuals from several opposition political groups, Islamists, journalists, homosexuals and political activists. Moreover Egypt has organized a new police unit, known as the "internet police".
Prosecutions have included 12 leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, a suspect charged with using the internet to send false information to "foreign bodies" (meaning foreign human rights organizations) about human rights violations in Egypt, an Egyptian journalist who created a website containing articles critical of Egyptian syndicates, and another user convicted of "disseminating abroad false news that could harm the state's national interests".
In Tunisia the government bans opposition websites as well as several international websites, including such well-known sites as Hotmail, and many Palestinian, Egyptian and human rights websites.
According to HRINFO at least 40 Tunisians have been "sentenced to long prison terms and tortured, just for logging on to some websites claimed by authorities to be terrorist websites".
The situation in Syria is equally discouraging. The government bans numerous websites and e-mail service providers, and has arrested and convicted many who have attempted to bypass these bans to criticize the government. Syria bans websites with pornographic content and those it considers "hostile" - pro-Israel, Islamic, web pages with articles about Syrian news and issues and Kurdish-language news websites based in Germany which provided news, pictures and video clips of demonstrations by the Syrian Kurdish minority. The HRINFO study estimates that, in addition to pornographic web pages, there are 137 blocked websites.
In Saudi Arabia, the study finds, 400,000 web pages were banned and filtered to "protect Islamic values and culture" in 2004. The Saudi government has blocked several Shia and Islamic websites that offer interpretations differing from the official Wahhabi line, banned international websites like Yahoo, American Online, and the well-known Arab Tawy Forum, and has even banned medical websites that use words like "chest" or "breasts", even though these words are used in explicitly medical contexts.
In Bahrain the government justifies internet bans on grounds that the government is the defender of morality and by claiming that certain websites are responsible for creating "domestic turmoil", the study reports. However, it also bans the websites of political opposition groups.
By mid-2003 the number of internet users in Libya was estimated to be 850,000, and is rapidly reaching 1 million. The Libyan government has invested heavily in the IT sector. But the growth of internet service has also provided Libyan dissidents scattered around the world with the opportunity to contact Libyan citizens and to strengthen their networks in the country. Most opposition, human rights, forums, news and even literary websites are based abroad, and the Libyan government attempts to block these sites.
In Yemen there are some 150,000 internet users. Both the Yemeni ministry of communications and the Yemeni ministry of culture have banned and monitored many websites, and these actions have led to a decline in internet usage. The Yemeni government justifies the banning and blocking for the preservation of "morality". The ban extends to political and cultural websites.
Until the end of 2002 internet use in Iraq was limited to those who could afford it. In 2002 the number of internet users among Iraq's total population of 24 million people was only 45,000, and many of these were state officials. Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein justified his prohibition of internet use by claiming the internet as an "American propaganda tool".
However, Iraq today has a thriving 'blogging' community, with hundreds of sites hosted by Iraqis and US and other coalition soldiers.
The study finds Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates among the more promising states in the Arab cyber world.
Jordanians were quick to seize the medium's new opportunities for expression. Users included leftists, Islamists, human rights groups deprived of freedom of expression for political reasons, Shias and Christians deprived on religious grounds, and homosexuals, deprived for both social and religious reasons. There are many cyber cafes, and the admission age has recently been reduced from 16 to 13. In general there is little censorship.
In the United Arab Emirates the report estimates the number of internet users to be 1.25 million, or 31 percent of the population. This places the UAE among the most advanced nations in internet use not only among Arab states but internationally as well. In its assessment of national e-government programs, the United Nations ranked the Emirates number one among Arab states and 21st in the world.
Compared with most Arab states, the study finds, Qataris enjoy more internet freedom and less censorship. There has been no news of website bans other than those placed on some pornographic websites.
In her introduction to the landmark Arab Human Development Report, Rima Khalaf Hunaidi, United Nations assistant secretary-general and regional director of UNDP's regional bureau for Arab states, a former deputy prime minister of Jordan, wrote: "The construction of a viable 'knowledge society' requires effective economic, social and political institutions." She says, "The missing links are smothered by ideologies, societal structures and values that inhabit critical thinking, cut Arabs off from their knowledge rich heritage and block the free flow of ideas and learning."
William Fisher is a regular contributor to the Middle East Times.
Contact the writer at www.billfisher.blogspot.com
Arab information superhighway or trip to jail?
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